Poetical Nonsense - The Misadventures in Halifax Page
Part One -- In which Tony learns of the pig and meets Gig and the Colonel
I spent 12 days in Halifax last summer as the guest of some very kind and wonderful people. My friend Dan and his new wife Leslie put me up as did my friends Murray and Karen. Thanks to all.
When Dan asked me to be his best man and take this cross country endeavour he neglected to tell me that one of my duties as best man would be to pick up a dead pig on the morning of the wedding so that it could be roasted and served at the feast.
Dan chose not to tell me this until the night before the wedding at about 1:00 am. We had a good five hours sleep until it was time to go collect the swine. Now, at one o'clock in the morning it may seem like a simple and straight forward task to go collect a pig and take him to be roasted. However, when the whole issue is clouded by a hangover and lack of sleep our quest did not seem so direct.
For a while I did not even believed there was a pig. I thought that maybe Dan was playing some sort of evil, mis-guided trick and that we would just drive aimlessly around Halifax until the bars opened.
When we pulled into a parking lot of the Halifax Seniors Club (where the reception was to be held) and Dan told me that it was time to meet the "Gig" I started to realise how much trouble I was in. Gig turned out to be this wide man of unfathomable age who was one of the Pig Roasters. He was wandering around outside an R.V. where he had slept the night (breaking no laws in the proceess, I am sure). Dan introduced me to him as Gig. I shook his hands and realised that his hands were the size of a small Caribbean Island. Also, I noticed, he pretended to talk like a pirate. He was saying things like "It's a fine day to cook swine" and "There's pig cooking to be done". Eventually I realised that he wasn't pretending to talk like a pirate he actually did talk like a pirate. Later on I surmised that he really was a Pirate - traveling around in the R.V. cooking pigs all over the Maritimes. Eventually his partner, the Colonel, wandered out of the R.V. He too talked like a pirate and I was starting to realise that I was not in Kansas anymore. The Colonel was a distinguished bearded gentleman who was dressed in mechanics overalls.
We all stood around the Pig Roaster, which was a huge drum that was welded to a frame. The
pig roaster was hitched to a mininvan that was used to transport it to weddings and parties all
over the maritimes. A woman emerged from the R.V. (apparently she was with the Colonel) and I just
could not shake the image of the Gig, the Colonel, the Lady, the R.V., the mini-van and the pig
roaster travelling on the highway late at night on there way to a retirement party or whatever.
I'm sure there is a t.v. series in there somewhere.
© 1996 Tony Abbis, all rights reserved.
On toPart Two !
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